Character Analysis
On a Short McLeish
Nick is the little Kerri Strug of the group. He's a gymnast who is loyal until the very end. Just as Kerri Strug vaulted to victory at the Atlanta Summer Olympics in 1994 on an injured ankle, Nick takes a licking and keeps on ticking. He's a good guy to have on your side, which is why Will zeroes in on him and recruits him.
Nick also serves as the comic relief of the group. In addition to being able to do a killer handstand, Nick is armed with an arsenal of dad jokes—and he's able to combine YouTube, Twitter and Facebook into "YouTwit-face" (17.13). He also talks with a lot of slang, saying "Chillax, slackasaurus" (21.86) and "ROTFLMAO" out loud (34.118).
Aside from being a loyal jokester, Nick has no plot of his own. He does reveal his backstory as a single kid with a single dad from a working-class family in New Hampshire, but in this installment of the Paladin Prophecy series, he is simply one of Will's many sidekicks.